I don't know if I'm alone on this one, but I feel like I've been seeing some love for TvC on my timeline for the past day or two. Got me thinking about it again and it just washed a wave of nostalgia over me.
Gameplay is very much Vs style with a few twists. They went back to the 2v2 tag format with the second character being available for assist moves as well. The two big systems they added here were Baroque and Mega Crash. Baroque allowed you to cancel moves and extend combos at the cost of your active character's red life. A damage increase to your attacks was applied as well based on how much red life was sacrificed. Mega Crash acts much like Bursts from ArcSys games allowing you to break out of most non-Hyper moves, though here it costs 2 meters and a portion of your health. Giants were also thrown into the mix, two specific characters who would run solo but had increased health and super armor on most moves at the cost of slow movement and attack speed and no assist.
The roster is definitely somewhat of an oddity, at least for us in the West. Since the game was never intended to be released outside of Japan, there are some pretty obscure character picks. Saki and Soki are prime examples, the former being from a Japan-exclusive quiz game (tho she did cameo in MvC1) and the latter was the protagonist of the fourth Onimusha game, a franchise that never quite hit the same highs here some of Capcom's other games from the PS2 era. In addition, half of the roster is dedicated to Tatsunoko's library of heroes (and one villain), most of which wouldn't have been widely recognizable here. They did toss in Frank West for the eventual release here for a dose of western appeal. Honestly though, I think the weirder roster picks ended up being kind of fun overall.
The game also has a certain style that I really dig. Due to running on arcade hardware based on the Wii, the models are noticeably more "blocky" than other 3D fighters from that era. I'm almost positive most of the facial animation is done via textures as well. Despite this, I think the way they stylized things and leaned into the anime aesthetic for both the shading and texture work gives it kind of a unique look. I'd honestly love to see another game try a similar artstyle for fun. The soundtrack was also pretty good and made for some fun tunes to battle to.
There's also the little touches that I loved about it. The game reports damage value on a scale of BILLIONS of points. Does it make any actual difference for gameplay? No, but it's just a really cute detail that gives the game a little bit of flair. The game also features moves that act differently based on who they're being used on. Some moves have an alternate or additional effect on robotic characters and others are modified or replaced in order to animate properly against the Giants. You can tell they put a lot of love into the game with this kind of attention to detail.
Honestly, the fact that this game released outside of Japan is still a miracle. The rights to various Tatsunoko properties can vary from territory to territory, so inking out deals that allowed these characters to appear in general was a nightmare. There were a few casualties though with the localization though. A single character (Hakushon Daimou) was cut due to negotiations not working out worldwide and music rights for the Tatsunoko characters' anime themes caused character-specific themes to be dropped (even from Capcom's cast) and replaced with new generic tracks. On the plus side, these new tracks are pretty good and 5 additional characters were added to this updated and rebalanced rerelease, so it's hard to complain with extra content and allowing the game to be released at all.
Obviously as with most fighting games, it had its heyday and doesn't get much talk now a days. It also suffered a bit from the choice of platform as the Wii wasn't particularly a hotspot for non-Smash fighting games, plus online wasn't super great either. On the flip side, there's still a small but dedicated scene playing it to this day and it still makes appearances as a side event at many tournaments.
So, what do you all think about it? Any fun memories or things you otherwise enjoy about TvC?
Gameplay is very much Vs style with a few twists. They went back to the 2v2 tag format with the second character being available for assist moves as well. The two big systems they added here were Baroque and Mega Crash. Baroque allowed you to cancel moves and extend combos at the cost of your active character's red life. A damage increase to your attacks was applied as well based on how much red life was sacrificed. Mega Crash acts much like Bursts from ArcSys games allowing you to break out of most non-Hyper moves, though here it costs 2 meters and a portion of your health. Giants were also thrown into the mix, two specific characters who would run solo but had increased health and super armor on most moves at the cost of slow movement and attack speed and no assist.
The roster is definitely somewhat of an oddity, at least for us in the West. Since the game was never intended to be released outside of Japan, there are some pretty obscure character picks. Saki and Soki are prime examples, the former being from a Japan-exclusive quiz game (tho she did cameo in MvC1) and the latter was the protagonist of the fourth Onimusha game, a franchise that never quite hit the same highs here some of Capcom's other games from the PS2 era. In addition, half of the roster is dedicated to Tatsunoko's library of heroes (and one villain), most of which wouldn't have been widely recognizable here. They did toss in Frank West for the eventual release here for a dose of western appeal. Honestly though, I think the weirder roster picks ended up being kind of fun overall.
The game also has a certain style that I really dig. Due to running on arcade hardware based on the Wii, the models are noticeably more "blocky" than other 3D fighters from that era. I'm almost positive most of the facial animation is done via textures as well. Despite this, I think the way they stylized things and leaned into the anime aesthetic for both the shading and texture work gives it kind of a unique look. I'd honestly love to see another game try a similar artstyle for fun. The soundtrack was also pretty good and made for some fun tunes to battle to.
There's also the little touches that I loved about it. The game reports damage value on a scale of BILLIONS of points. Does it make any actual difference for gameplay? No, but it's just a really cute detail that gives the game a little bit of flair. The game also features moves that act differently based on who they're being used on. Some moves have an alternate or additional effect on robotic characters and others are modified or replaced in order to animate properly against the Giants. You can tell they put a lot of love into the game with this kind of attention to detail.
Honestly, the fact that this game released outside of Japan is still a miracle. The rights to various Tatsunoko properties can vary from territory to territory, so inking out deals that allowed these characters to appear in general was a nightmare. There were a few casualties though with the localization though. A single character (Hakushon Daimou) was cut due to negotiations not working out worldwide and music rights for the Tatsunoko characters' anime themes caused character-specific themes to be dropped (even from Capcom's cast) and replaced with new generic tracks. On the plus side, these new tracks are pretty good and 5 additional characters were added to this updated and rebalanced rerelease, so it's hard to complain with extra content and allowing the game to be released at all.
Obviously as with most fighting games, it had its heyday and doesn't get much talk now a days. It also suffered a bit from the choice of platform as the Wii wasn't particularly a hotspot for non-Smash fighting games, plus online wasn't super great either. On the flip side, there's still a small but dedicated scene playing it to this day and it still makes appearances as a side event at many tournaments.
So, what do you all think about it? Any fun memories or things you otherwise enjoy about TvC?
